A Purely Descriptive Blog

I traveled from Albany to New York City on March 19th, 2010 for the sole purpose of going to the Grupo Experimental Nuevayorkino’s show at Hostos Cultural Center in the Bronx on the 20th, and after the first song of the second part of the show, I walked out in disgust, thinking, “I want my money back!”

When I took the Megabus to New York City on March 19th, 2010, the weather was nice. The bus was not as comfortable as I expected and it was crowded. I had to stuff my raincoat in my backpack since there was no overhead compartment. The sun was shining and the upper deck felt like a greenhouse. Once we got going and the air conditioner kicked in, the temperature went down. Pretty soon I was asleep. When I woke up, I didn’t know where I was and I had missed half of the George Carlin monologue I had begun to listen upon departure.

It took us four hours to get to New York. There was an accident on the highway that made us inch our way from who-knows-where all the way to the proximity of the Lincoln Tunnel. The city was warm and, as usual, teeming with people. I took the R to Union Square and walked to the International Seafarers House with apprehension. The price of the room made me wonder whether I would be spending two nights in a roach motel. I was pleasantly surprised. The place was Spartan but clean, and the location was perfect. There was a lot of noise coming from the Side Bar, on the corner of 15th and Irving Place, but after shutting the window, the noise almost went away. For two nights I slept well.

While the main purpose of my trip was to see Grupo Folklorico on Saturday, on Friday night, and thanks to my friend George Rivera, who told me about it, I went to see the Oasis Project by Papo Vazquez at Pregones Theather on Walton Avenue in the Bronx, one block away from the 149th St and Grand Concourse subway stop. Words cannot possibly do justice to this project. The core of Oasis is Bomba and Plena. On that platform, Vazquez built a structure that includes classical music, jazz, Danza, music from Israel, Lebanon, and Spain, and a subtle tribute to the Beatles. The orchestra consisted of trombone, trumpet, tenor and alto sax, violins, viola, cello, harp, bassoon, oboe, flute and clarinet and the rhythm section included piano, keyboard, double bass, drums, batá drums, barriles, panderos, cajón, congas, bongó, timpani, timbales, Chinese gong, and wind chimes. The second song of the first movement included a young ballet dancer and a belly dancer performed during two songs in the first movement and during the closing song of the second movement. The project included poetry and a slide show of tropical images. A young artist completed a painting while the music was playing but I think this was an ad hoc feature.

I did a bit of University business on Saturday morning. During my meeting I had a cup of coffee in a bowl, the way they do it in France. I spent the rest of the day reading the drafts of two legislative bills that purport to reform the redistricting process in New York State and shopping for books at Strand Bookstore, on Broadway and 12th St., where they boast about having “18 miles of books.” I bought a biography of Darwin’s Origin of Species, a collection of stories by Tolstoy, Beyond Belief by Elaine Pagels, and Jodie Foster’s The Accused. Since I did not have lunch, by 5:30 pm I was hungry. I had a very nice meal across the street from the Seafarers International House at a place called Galaxy Global Eatery. Then I headed back to the Bronx.

At Hostos, Grupo Folklorico Experimental NuevaYorkino became Grupo Floklorico Experimental Marcel Marceau, which is why I walked out during the second part of the show, after Chocolate Armenteros played “Me Boté de Guacho.” Thanks to the acoustically deficient theatre and the horrible sound system, the show became an oxymoronic mix of stridency and pantomime. The congas and the violin were never heard. And everything else except the vocals, which sounded foggy, was an ebb and flow of booming sound. The place sounded like a cave; everything was blurry. The horns sounded as if they were being played in a different state. Strangely, most of the time Eddie Zervigón played the flute away from the microphone but even when he played into the microphone the flute was silent, except for a few notes during a solo. When Oscar Hernandez took a piano solo I could see his hands moving but there was no sound. The congas could not be heard. After two songs, Jorge Maldonado asked the audience if they could hear and there were scattered cries of “No, No!” “Is it the volume?” he asked. The sound engineer was exhorted to fix the problem but nothing changed. Later on, someone in the front row shouted: “We can’t hear the trumpet, we can’t hear the trombone,” but nothing was done. It was fortunate that Reinaldo Jorge and Eddie Venegas moved front stage to trade solos because otherwise their effort would have been futile. The pantomime of the congueros during “Yo Soy del Africa” was ironically punctuated by the piercing vocals of Pedrito Martínez. It was a combination of silent gesturing and gritería that nearly ruptured my eardrums. When Chocolate took his trumpet solo, the man sitting next to me plugged his ears. I followed suit and at that point I made my decision: “After this song, I’m getting the hell out of here.” I stepped into someone’s toes on my way out.

Before going to New York I asked some of my musician friends if they were playing in the city Friday or Saturday. I had the good fortune to be invited by Willie Martínez to see La Familia Sextet at the Lenox Lounge on Saturday night. From Hostos I took the number 2 to 125th St. The Lenox Lounge sits right at the intersection of 125th and Malcolm X Boulevard. Willie was just finishing his first set when I went in. During the second set the audience was a small group of mostly Japanese people and myself. I had heard all the songs before except the cover of Hank Mobley’s “This I Dig of You,” which was a scorcher. The third set started way after the officially designated time of 11:30 pm. Three Japanese men and I were the only people in the audience. I feared that the band would decide not to play but they did and how. My God. What a performance.

At Pregones, Papo Vazquez had a full house but the theater is small. Willie Martínez was visibly disappointed at the small turnout at the Lenox Lounge, although that was not reflected in his playing or in the playing of any of the band members, not even for an instant. Eso es lo que se llama corazón. In contrast, Hostos was swarming with people. Grupo Folklorico had a huge audience. Thinking about the event (not the group) I said to myself: “This is like McDonald’s; it is the worst hamburger and yet it sells more than anyone else.” No one should ever play again at that place. Oops. This was supposed to be a purely descriptive blog.